I used to link to photobucket prior to auctiva and would like to use auctiva for hosting now. Trouble is most of my images are higher than they are wide and have been sized by me to 400x[something], [something] being greater than 400.
The 400x300 resize is a pain and results in varying image widths that frankly look poor and small in the test listings I have done.
I can't see a way round this. Am I missing anything or do I stay with photobucket, for now at least?
Auctiva automatically resizes to max (either dimension) of 1024 W x 768 H on upload, BUT also stores a downsized 400 x 300 for use in many of the templates. Note the 4:3 aspect ratio, which is common to most digital cameras. I guess it depends on exactly how you are displaying the images and the quality of your resize software.
My best advise is to upload original images to Auctiva, and let them resize and store appropriately. Try that as a test and see if it gives you better results. I usually use the 1.7MP setting on my cam for uncropped images, as it minimizes the upload time and gets just about the right amount of downsize without any pixilation by Auctiva. You can certainly use higher res, it just takes a little longer.
Danno
"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently isn't paying eBay and PayPal Seller fees."
When hosted on Auctiva the resize to 400x300 seems to be forced when the image is listed with a 'click to supersize' option. I don't think that happens on images linked to an external host.
My images are, by their nature, higher than they are wide and I have previously gone to some trouble to get them a constant width, but variable depth to look good in listings.
Is there any way to get the image to display as is?
Well, Auctiva seems to do a very good job in making multiple images displayed together have equal height, i.e. they size them to max height and display well in that click to supersize mode.
When reading your initial post, it sounded like you were trying to move your pics to Auctiva storage and (I assume) that was in part to use the other features, like templates. That's why I was recommending you let Auctiva do the resize.
If you want to continue linking to external, then sizing them for display would be one method (which seems to be difficult), or the insert image feature icon (top row next to last on toolbar) in the lister does have a sizing feature for image that forces to a width or height limit and you can see the result immediately. Just type in 300 for height and it automaticaly resizes (note lock icon to keep proportions correct).
Danno
"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently isn't paying eBay and PayPal Seller fees."
You're right, I would like to move to Auctiva to streamline the creation of listings within a template, and other things.
I suppose it comes down to me needing to adjust the way I work to get the best from the system. Trying to get it to work in a way that it is not intended can be difficult, and linking to external images is more time consuming.
I'm a little confused. Auctiva stores the original max size? What if you do your own editing and resizing because you don't want to have to upload those bloated pictures on a slow dsl uplink? My pics are 480 pixels on the longest side, not 400. If I upload the 480 pixels pics (which is smaller than the 'max size'), they'd still get resized smaller?
* Pictures are uploaded in the size that they are on your PC. * Any Auctiva hosted pictures are resized to 400x300 in the listing with a message something like click here to supersize which seems to link to the original sized image.
Like you the 400x300 does not suit the fact that I upload images that have already been cropped and resized.
The fix for me, that I discovered accidentally, was to design my own listing template. In that you can choose whether to list the images at 400x300 or in their original size.
Auctiva stores pictures in at least three sizes. If you right-mouse click and check properties, you'll see the _th _tp and _o appended to the stored names, to denote each type. The picture was cropped and prior to upload was 990 H x 1489 W. So, the resizes are done by Auctiva.
Ms. Sophie Blue.....A Cat and Nine Tailes
Thumbnail _th max (80 H x 80 W) - There is also reference to 96 x 96 in the Custom Template creator, so there may be both a small _th and large _?? Thumbnail stored.
ebay picture default _tp max (300 H x 400 W)
Original _o max (768 H x 1024 W)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Danno,
"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently isn't paying eBay and PayPal Seller fees."
As far as I can tell, they all happen, i.e. Auctiva automatically creates them all at upload. I can easily see reasons why. The original is retained as largest and for Supersize function. The thumbnail is used even on Auctiva's Images library. The default (300 x 400) is pretty much the ebay standard and the typical one integrated for that purpose when creating listings.
Hope that makes sense.
Danno
"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently isn't paying eBay and PayPal Seller fees."
Yunno I had not realised that the resizing was going on in the background, and I have to admit that for the smallest of smallest of moments I doubted you. My most humblest apologies.
Anyway to test the creation of the other image sizes I uploaded a test.jpg that was 900x1238 on my PC and lo and behold its size in Auctiva is 558x768. Have to say there is only one image file though! Maybe the others get created if it is used in the gallery etc.
Look up that image in your library. Copy the URL to your browser and display. Then modify the _o to the _tp and the _th and display to see if the images were created.
That's essentially what I posted as examples, i.e the Thumbnail and Default don't appear in the library (other than the thumbnail at left for that image).
Danno
"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently isn't paying eBay and PayPal Seller fees."
